


Fallen Kings

by thatsweetmysteryoflife



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Chess, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-24 02:11:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/629155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsweetmysteryoflife/pseuds/thatsweetmysteryoflife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik and Charles meet post First Class for a game of chess. It isn’t quite the same as it used to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fallen Kings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saunteredvaguelydownward](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saunteredvaguelydownward/gifts).



Some days, it seemed like Charles Xavier’s life ran on pure luck. It was by pure luck that his sister had chosen his house, out of all the houses in the city, to break into that night so many years ago. It was by pure luck that his genetics had enabled him a modicum of control over the thoughts and minds of others. It was pure luck that he had survived a bullet to the spine one fateful afternoon, collapsing to the sand of a Cuban beach paralyzed, but not dead.

On this particular day, pure luck had brought him from the school to the city, in order to speak to potential investors interested in the future of his school and its work.

And yet again, it was by pure luck that Charles caught a glimpse of a very familiar face passing through the memories of a stranger’s mind while waiting in a lounge outside a potential investor’s office. Within his next intake of breath, he had latched onto the stranger’s mind and started frantically rummaging through his thoughts for that face, trying to capture as much information as he could before it all slipped away. He  _must_ —he  _had_  to—he couldn’t lose him again. Not when he was suddenly so close.

He couldn’t lose Erik again.

He gritted his teeth in frustration as he scanned the man’s memory, desperately searching for more than a two-second glimpse of the tall man striding down the sidewalk. There was nothing more. Charles exhaled heavily as he raised his hands to his temples, and tried to mentally compose himself as he prepared to attempt one of the most difficult things he’d ever done. If he couldn’t get anything more from this man, perhaps he could pull other faces from the memory and try to find and extract more memories from them, eventually merging them all into a single scene.

It  _had_ to work. He  _had_ to succeed. He didn’t let himself consider the possibility of failure.

Charles inhaled deeply, closed his eyes, and  _reached_.

He was flooded with a barrage of images, of faces and colors and light and dark, of smells and sensations and half-formed connections, as he jumped from mind to mind to mind, sifting out the few precious seconds of memory he sought so urgently. The seconds he found in each head slowly started to piece together, and he followed the footsteps of his old friend as he crossed a busy street and entered the lobby of a small hotel. Charles’ skin was becoming more and more waxy and sweat dripped down his face, but he closed his eyes even more tightly and kept going. He jumped his way through the mind of the few observers that had been standing in the lobby and, gathering his remaining strength, made the jump to the mind of the hotel clerk.

Through the clerk’s ears, Charles heard a well-remembered voice mutter, “A single room, please. Reserved for Lehnsherr.” He involuntarily let out the breath he had been holding at the sound of the low voice. He watched as the clerk rummaged through a filing box, and pulled out a room key and a sheet of paper.

“Just sign here, please, sir,” he asked, and extended the key as the now-signed paper was handed back to him. “Room 208, sir, just up those stairs and to the left. Enjoy your stay.”

He broke the connection.

Charles’ eyes flew open and he gasped for breath, suddenly feeling as if a great weight was crushing all the air out of his lungs. With a violent jerk, he grasped the edge of the table in front of him with uncontrollably trembling hands. Charles lowered his head to rest on the cool wood, inhaling in short, ragged gasps. His face was deathly pale, with two spots of feverish red burning in his cheeks. In his effort to maintain focus, his teeth had bit into the flesh of his lower lip until his mouth was flooded with the coppery taste of his own blood. He brought his forearms around to cradle his head as he lay there, weak and shaking from the incredible strain he had just put himself through. But he stared blankly out into space, barely noticing his physical condition.

All of that was secondary information.

He had finally found Erik.

And this time, he had a plan.

\------

There was a knock at the door of the hotel room, and Erik stood with an annoyed sigh to cross to the door and pull it open. “Can I help you?”

The hotel attendant held out a sealed envelope and simply declared, “Message for you, sir.” When Erik took the envelope from his outstretched hand, the attendant nodded once and marched off down the hallway. Sliding a finger under the flap and tearing it open as he nudged the door shut with one foot, he drew out a single sheet of paper with a few lines of handwritten text. As his eyes flickered over the words, the air left his lungs with a sudden rush.

_I hear you’re in town. Chess? Brighton Park on Sunday afternoon?_  
 _-Charles_

\------

_I will see you there.  
-Erik_

Charles felt a smile creep its way onto his face uninvited, and there was really nothing he could do to try and hold it back.

\------

Leaves crunched underfoot as Erik strode down the city sidewalk, long coat flapping in the wind and hat pressed firmly to his head. Emma Frost, who had through some odd series of events unofficially declared herself his second in command, had spent the morning trying to convince him not to go, but there had been no persuading him. Charles had extended a hand, and he had no choice—or no desire to turn it down. There was a niggling feeling of discomfort hovering in the back of his mind, but he pushed it down firmly. He didn’t need to be shielded by his helmet for this meeting.  _It will be fine_ , he reassured himself as he stepped off the sidewalk into the grass of the park.  _Frost has trained you to close your mind. He can’t get_ … His train of thought trailed off. Across the lawn, a man sat alone at one of the chess tables, the usual chair for the table pushed aside to make room for his futuristic-looking wheelchair.

Charles.

Steeling himself, he strode across the grass until he stood just behind the wheelchair, then tentatively stretched out a hand and touched the other man’s shoulder. Erik felt the muscles start in surprise under his hand, then was abruptly pinned by a pair of delighted blue eyes as Charles twisted around to grin up at him.

“Erik! I’m so glad you came!” he exclaimed, and placed his hand over Erik’s on his shoulder to squeeze it briefly. “Please, take one of the chairs,” he continued, and reached down into a canvas bag leaning against one of his wheels to pull out a latched wooden box. Flipping the latch to reveal a set of ivory and polished gunmetal chess pieces as Erik settled himself in the seat across from him, he asked, “I assume you wished to play with your own set, no?”

With a twitch of Erik’s fingers, the metal chessmen lifted out of the wooden case and floated up to the chess board, rearranging themselves until they were correctly positioned and slowly lowered into place. “That was very thoughtful of you, Charles,” he remarked quietly. The other man grinned all the wider and began setting up his own pieces one at a time.

“I do try to be thoughtful,” he agreed, and focused his attention on the board. There was an underlying current of tension running between the pair at the chessboard, both knowing that there was a discussion ahead that neither of them truly wished to have.

After a few moments of silence, Erik murmured, “Shall we begin?” Looking up from his pieces, Charles met his gaze calmly and nodded. His fingers hovered over the pieces for a moment, then gripped a pawn and moved it forward.

King pawn to E4.

One finger raised and a metal pawn lifted into the air a few centimeters to land in front of the white pawn.

King pawn to E5.

The game had begun.

\------

They played in silence for a time, the air around them charged with the depth of the words they would not utter.

King knight to F3.

Charles played with his eyes on the board, a small crease between his brows and his fingers trailing over the heads of his pieces.

King knight to C6.

Erik played with his hands resting on the edge of the table, directing the movement of his pieces with flicking movements of his fingers, but his attention was continually on the people bustling around them.

King bishop to C4.

Charles kept glancing up at Erik and promptly glancing down and away. Erik couldn’t tell if he was able to touch his mind or not, and focused on keeping his shields firmly in place. Blinking slowly, he repeated the phrases that he had found kept him focused on his own closed mind.  _You are yourself. You cannot be touched._ _Your mind is a fortress._ _Your mind is your own._

King knight to D4.

Erik’s attention kept being caught by people walking by, following them till he was sure they were not a threat. Snapping his focus back to the chess board, he noticed Charles regarding him with his head cocked to one side thoughtfully.

King knight to E5, take black pawn.

“Are you feeling exposed?” asked Charles with an amused twitch of his eyebrows as he set down his knight and scooped the black pawn off the board. “Easy enough to fix.” He blinked just once, slowly.

Around them, the world froze.

Erik looked around slowly. “Better?” asked Charles nonchalantly, as if he hadn’t just frozen all the people in the park around them. Erik turned his head jerkily to look back at Charles with some measure of calm, although inwardly he wanted to scream. This was new. This was something he had never seen, never even  _dreamed_ of. Charles was capable of  _this_?

“Yes,” he replied once his voice was under control, then grudgingly added, “Thank you.” It didn’t seem quite right, to thank him for mind controlling so many people, but he had done it because Erik had felt uncomfortable, and in its own odd way, that was almost…kind.

Black queen to G5.

Charles fluttered one hand over his pieces, contemplating the board. The other rested on his lap, and continuously clenched and unclenched as he steeled himself for what he knew he had to say. With a small sigh, his hand came down on his knight and moved it forward to capture a pawn.

King knight to F7, take black pawn.

As he placed the black pawn to the right of the board, he took a deep breath and plunged into the murky waters of the conversation neither of them wanted to have.

“You think it’s your fault I was shot, don’t you?”

Erik looked up from the chess board, his blue-green eyes wide with alarm. Charles smiled gently. “I don’t need to read your mind to know your thoughts, old friend.” He glanced down, then met Erik’s gaze squarely with his own bright blue eyes. There was an intensity in his stare that was almost frightening.

“It  _was_  your fault, Erik,” he began slowly, and Erik lowered his eyelids, in a gesture that clearly said, “Yes, I know.” Charles shook his head firmly. “No. Let me finish, please.” He paused, then continued. “It was your fault, but it was an accident, nothing more. No one blames you.” He went on softly. “It has taken me a great deal of time and thought, but I have come to the conclusion that I myself have never blamed you. And if there is even the slightest reason that you are culpable for what was a complete and utter accident, you are more than forgiven.”

Erik couldn’t meet Charles’ gaze. How could Charles possibly say such things? There was no doubt in Erik’s mind—it was without question his fault. His, and his alone. How could he even begin to express the guilt and anguish he felt sitting at this table, steadily  _not_ looking at the one man who had dared to try and change his life for the better? The man who, because of him alone, sat calmly in front of him in a contraption that made Erik think of a prison, no matter how elegant its design? (And its design  _was_ elegant, he had to admit, which meant Charles had had a hand in its planning. But no matter how lovely, it was still a prison.) How could he sit there and face Charles,  _his_ Charles, knowing full well it was because of him that Charles would never walk again? No miracle of modern science, no mutant power could repair the damage he had caused.

He had broken the best and brightest thing he had ever known.

 _I will never forgive myself_.

Still gazing down at the chess board, he lifted his queen and silently moved it to G2, picking up the white pawn underneath it so it could lower into its position on the board. If Charles noticed the slight jerkiness to its movement as it floated through the air, he stayed silent.

“What— _happened_  to you, Charles…” Erik trailed off. “It was, and is, my fault. No matter if you give me the blame or not.” He lifted his chin from his chest, eyes blazing from underneath the brim of his hat. “But if you think your words can turn me from the path I know is right, you are  _wrong_.”

Charles’ hand twitched as it closed around his rook in time with Erik’s final word.

King rook to F1.

“I do not mean to change what you believe, Erik,” he began quietly, looking at his fingers intertwined on the wood of the table. “I would never presume to do so. I merely wished…I merely  _wish_  to see if you and your compatriots would—would be willing to consider your stance on isolation.”

Black queen to E4, take white pawn.

Setting the pawn to the side of the board alongside the other pieces he had captured, Erik stared across the table at the man he used to consider his partner, guilt and fear and longing roiling in his gut. For a long moment, he said nothing, and Charles sighed and reached out to move his bishop.

King bishop to E2.

“And why would we wish to do that?” Erik asked finally, his voice cracking with tension. “The humans are against us.  _You_  are against us. What choice do we have but to protect ourselves?” Charles shook his head violently, his hair flopping from side to side as he did.

“No— _ **no**_. I am not—” He cut himself off. “We are not, we could never be against you. And if that is what you have thought all this time, I am so, so sorry, Erik,” he said, a note of pleading creeping into his voice. “I do not agree with your wish to pit humans against mutants, it is true,” he stated firmly, and a muscle pulsed underneath Erik’s jaw. “But—” Charles struggled to find the words, then trapped his bottom lip between his teeth in frustration. “But just because I do not agree with your ideas does not mean you no longer have a home with us. You—” his voice wobbled as he spoke. “You are my  _friend_ , Erik. You will  _always_  be my friend. Please don’t think you must do this alone.”

Erik stared at him over the chessboard, his face blank. He stayed silent for a long moment, then choked out, “What are you saying?”

Charles planted his hands on either side of the board and leaned as far forward as he could. “Come back,” he said with vehemence. “Come back with me, Erik.  _All_  of you. This isn’t right. It doesn’t have to be this way. Just—” His voice broke as he spoke, and his volume dropped to a whisper.

“Just come home.”

The plea hung in the air between them, thick with barely repressed emotion. After a long silence and a long stillness, Erik finally moved. With a twitch of his fingers, he sent his knight to F3.

“Checkmate, I believe,” he muttered. Charles surveyed the board as the muscles on his arms strained as he lowered himself back into his wheelchair.

“You’re right,” agreed Charles quietly, tapping a finger against his cheek. “Only a seven move game?” he asked with a smile that held no humor. “I must be losing my touch.” With a gentle prod, Charles tipped over his white king so it clattered to its side on the wooden board. Although quiet, the sound it made as it hit the wood was unnaturally loud to the pair, like the sound of a heavy door slamming shut with terrible finality.

Erik stood, still avoiding Charles’ eyes, and replaced his hat on his head. “Goodbye, Charles,” he muttered, then turned and walked away through the still-frozen crowds.

Charles watched his retreating form until he walked out of sight. 

With a blink of his eyes, the world unfroze around him, turning back into the roiling mass of humanity it had been before. In the center of the storm, one man sat as still as a statue, alone.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as one part of a series of Christmas fics for my dear friend Lily. 
> 
> If you’re interested in the chess game I describe here, it’s based on a classic seven-move game called Kostic’s Trap! For more information, check it out here: http://www.johnpratt.com/items/chess/kostics.html.


End file.
